Ugandan police and troops firing live and plastic bullets fought running battles with protesters angered by the arrest on treason charges of the president’s main political rival.
Kizza Besigye appeared in court on Tuesday, a day after his arrest.
Elsewhere in Kampala, his supporters ransacked businesses, burned tyres and threw stones and other objects at security forces in the central business district.
Private radio station Central Broadcasting Service reported that police shot dead at least one person who was trying to break into a shop.
Police spokesperson Asuman Mugenyi, however, said the man died from a gunshot wound he suffered when a guard from a private security firm fired his weapon to stop the man from breaking into a shop.
The dead man was among six people who were hospitalised for treatment of injuries they suffered during the protests. Police arrested 57 people during the riots, he said.
Supporters, some shouting condemnation of President Yoweri Museveni and the proceedings, foreign diplomats and opposition politicians, attended Besigye’s court hearing. A district magistrate ruled that prosecutors have enough evidence to back charges of treason — which carries the death penalty — as well as concealment of treason and rape against Uganda’s main opposition leader.
Museveni denied opposition claims that Besigye was charged in an effort to eliminate a credible opponent from next year’s presidential elections.
”Besigye has to prove his innocence because he is charged before the courts of law,” Museveni told a conference of his ruling National Resistance Movement.
Chief magistrate Margareth Tiburya transferred the case to the high court for trial, because the lower court does not have powers to try capital offences. The magistrate also ordered Besigye to remain in custody at the Luzira maximum-security prison until the high court fixes a trial date.
Besigye, who was greeted by huge crowds when he returned from exile last month and has mounted the strongest challenge to Museveni’s 19-year rule, is accused of recruiting, funding and arming rebels with the help of neighbouring Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.
Besigye has denied past accusations from the government that he led the People’s Redemption Army and had links with separate rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
The People’s Redemption Army is described as a group of armed Ugandan dissidents based in the east of the DRC. Those insurgents have never attacked Uganda’s territory or interests.
The cult-like Lord’s Resistance Army is notorious for kidnapping children and using them as soldiers or concubines. It is made up of the remnants of a northern insurgency that began after Museveni, who like Besigye is a southerner, first took power. The rebels have declared they want to replace Museveni’s government with one guided by the biblical Ten Commandants. — Sapa-AP